Chapter 4

With his petition Thomas Bacon presented an appeal from his son's followers called "The Virginians' Plea." They were in danger day and night, especially those who lived dispersedly on the frontier, from the murderous Indians, and many had been forced to desert their plantations. So they offered their services to go out against them, "having still so much English blood in us ... as to risk our lives in opposing them ... rather than to be sneakingly murdered in our beds.... Oh Heavens! what a sad dilemma! We confess we have vented our discontents in complaints of other grievances also, too great to be wholly smothered." But they had taken up arms not to relieve themselves by the sword from them, since they thought it better to wait patiently until they could appeal to the King, the governor, the Assembly, and Parliament.

But the period of patient waiting was now at an end. Bacon and his men were in possession of all Virginia west of the Chesapeake Bay. The immediate question was how to defend it against the governor and perhaps an expedition from England. For this the control of the water was vital. The four great rivers gave easy access to the heart of the colony to an enemy fleet, but were serious obstacles to moving troops by land. Without war vessels it would be necessary for Bacon to divide his little army into numerous widely separated detachments in order to defend hundreds of miles of shore.

Lying in the James River were three merchantmen, the _Honour and Dorothy_, the _Rebecca_, commanded by Captain Larrimore, and another _Rebecca_, commanded by Captain Eveling. On August 1 Giles Bland and William Carver, the latter "an able mariner and soldier," rowed out to Larrimore's ship, and though fired on, captured her. They then drew her up at Jamestown and mounted several guns on her from the fort. In the meanwhile Bacon, thinking Berkeley might be aboard Eveling's vessel, demanded permission to search her. But Eveling refused, calling him a rebel and naming him "Oliver Bacon", and before Larrimore's vessel could attack him, weighed anchor, slipped down the river, and headed for England.

Though disappointed at Eveling's escape Bland and Carver, with the _Rebecca_, a small bark, and a sloop, carrying a force of two hundred and fifty men, stationed themselves at the mouth of the James, ready to seize and to press into service any incoming vessels. But they made the mistake of moving across the bay and anchoring off Accomac to treat with the governor. Carver, with 160 men, came ashore in a pinnace. Berkeley tried to persuade him to desert Bacon, but he replied that "if he served the devil he would be true to his trust."

Berkeley ordered him to be gone within eight hours, but contrary winds sprang up so that he had to delay. This Berkeley thought Carver was glad of, since it gave him an opportunity to wean his soldiers away from him. But it proved a godsend for Berkeley. At about midnight a message came to him from Captain Larrimore, explaining that he and his crew served under duress, that there were only forty soldiers left on board the _Rebecca_, and that if he could send thirty or forty gentlemen to the ship, he was sure they, with the help of the sailors, could retake her.

So Philip Ludwell with two boats went out under cover of darkness. As they approached the ship the soldiers on deck hesitated to fire on them, thinking they were coming at Carver's invitation. So they drew up alongside and clambered in through the gunroom ports. As they rushed up on deck they were joined by the sailors with handspikes, and together they soon forced the soldiers to surrender. In the meanwhile Carver too was approaching, and hearing the shouts, tried to veer away. But Larrimore trained his guns on him and captured him and all his men. Coming on board he "stormed, tore his hair off and cursed," as well he might for he knew that he would soon be on the way to the gallows. This was a major victory, for it gave the governor control of the water. From now on he was safe from any attempt to invade the Eastern Shore. On the other hand, he could at will strike at any point up the great Virginia rivers.

While these events were taking place Bacon was leading an army through the woods and swamps of upper Gloucester and Middlesex. He had good reason to believe that it was the Pamunkeys who had made some recent incursions, and he was determined to ferret them out. But it proved a difficult task. His men, tired of wandering here and there, soaked by drenching rains, and half-starved, began to waver. But their dauntless young leader, after permitting many to return, resumed the search with the rest.

They had gone but a few miles when they came upon an Indian village, protected on three sides by swamps, and on the other by thickets and bushes. As the English charged the terrified Indians fled. Many were shot down, many others captured. The queen of the Pamunkeys escaped, and wandered through the woods for days, half starved. Bacon led his men back in triumph, bringing forty-five prisoners, and stores of wampum, skins, furs, and English goods.

But having broken the power of the Pamunkeys, Bacon had now to meet forces raised by the governor. Soon after the capture of the _Rebecca_ Captain Gardiner joined the little fleet with the _Adam and Eve_. So Berkeley, embarking 200 men on the ships and on six or seven sloops, crossed over to the Western Shore where another hundred joined them. Then they sailed up the James to Jamestown. Bacon's garrison, perhaps fearing the guns on the ships and thinking themselves outnumbered, fled in the night without firing a shot.

Bacon received this news calmly, though Berkeley declared that "he swore one thousand of his usual execrable oaths." At the time he had but one hundred and thirty-six tired and hungry men with him. But he was determined to lead them to the attack. "Gentlemen and fellow soldiers, how am I transported with gladness to find you thus unanimous, bold and daring, brave and gallant!" he said. "You have the victory before you fight, the conquest before the battle.... I know you have the prayers and well-wishes of all the people of Virginia, while the others are loaded with their curses."

Of this they had abundant evidence, for as they trudged along the people brought out "fruits and victuals," shouted encouragement, and denounced the governor. There was a brief stop in New Kent while recruits came in, before they set off for James City County. There the youthful leader delivered another address to his men: "If ever you have fought well and bravely, you must do so now.... They call us rebels and traitors, but we will see whether their courage is as great as their pretended loyalty. Come on, my hearts of gold, he who dies in the field of battle dies in the bed of honor."

When Bacon arrived before Jamestown the place seemed impregnable. The narrow isthmus which was the only approach to the town was defended by three heavy guns, the ships in the river were ready to give support, the Back Creek and a series of marshes protected the north shore. But Bacon was not discouraged. All night long his men labored to throw up a makeshift fortress of "trees, bush and earth" facing the isthmus, as a protection should Berkeley's force sally out. When the governor saw what was going on he ordered the ships and shallops to move up to fire on the crude structure, while his soldiers let loose with repeated volleys. Thereupon Bacon sent out parties of horse through the adjacent plantations to bring in the wives of some of the governor's supporters, Elizabeth Page, Angelica Bray, Anna Ballard, Frances Thorpe and even Elizabeth Bacon, wife of his cousin, Nathaniel Bacon, Senior. The terrified ladies were placed upon the ramparts, where they would be in great peril should the firing be resumed, and kept there until Bacon had completed the work and mounted his guns.

It was on September 15, that Berkeley's troops sallied out, formed in front of Bacon's fort, and rushed forward, horse and foot "pressing very close upon one another's shoulders." They made an excellent target, so that when the rebels opened on them, those in front threw down their arms and fled. Had Bacon pressed close on their heels he might have taken the place, and with it Berkeley, and all his men. But he held back and the opportunity was lost.

The governor was furious, and reviled his officers in "passionate terms." But it should have been obvious to him that he could not trust men who fought under compulsion, many of them in sympathy with Bacon. "The common soldiers mutinied, and the officers did not do their whole duty to suppress them," he wrote afterwards. The officers urged on him the necessity of abandoning the town. "One night having rode from guard to guard and from quarter to quarter all day long to encourage the men, I went to bed," Berkeley said. "I was no sooner lain down but there came three or four of the chief officers and told me I must presently rise and go to the ships for the soldiers were all mutinying ... and that 200 or 300 men were landed at the back of us." But when he put on his clothes, mounted his horse, and rode to the spot they had indicated, he found the report false.

The next day the officers again urged the evacuation of the place. But the governor demurred, "desiring them with all passionate earnestness to keep the town ... I told them I could neither answer this to the King nor to any man that ever was a soldier, unless they gave under their hands the necessity of my dishonorable quitting the place." This they immediately did and then hurried him away to the fleet. That night guns were spiked, arms and stores were taken on board the vessels, and the soldiers were embarked. Then silently the little fleet slipped down the river.

The next morning Bacon's men occupied the town. But now he was uncertain as to what he should do with it. News had come that Giles Brent, a former supporter of Bacon who had gone over to the governor, had raised an army in the northern counties and was marching south to attack him. Brent, who was half Indian, was a sacrilegious man who was said to have drunk the devil's health, at the same time firing his pistol "to give the devil a gun." His advance put Bacon in a quandary. If he remained in Jamestown, he would be trapped between Brent on land and Berkeley's fleet by water. If he deserted the town, Berkeley would return and occupy it. In the end, he, Lawrence, Drummond, and the others decided to burn the town.

A few minutes later the village was a mass of flames. Lawrence applied the torch to his own house, Drummond to his, and Bacon to the church. They "burnt five houses of mine," reported Berkeley, "and twenty of other gentlemen." It was a desperate deed of determined men, a deed which foreshadowed the burning of Norfolk by patriots in the American Revolution a century later to prevent the British from using it as a base of operations.

Turning his back on the ruins of Jamestown, Bacon led his men first to Green Spring, then to the site of Yorktown, and crossing the York River made his headquarters at the residence of Colonel Augustine Warner, in Gloucester. But when word came that Brent's forces were approaching, he wheeled his veterans into line, the "drums thundered out the march," and away they went to meet him. But there was no battle. Brent's men, many of them probably indentured workers who had been forced into service, had no wish to risk their lives for the governor. So, when they heard that Bacon's force was on the march, they refused to fight, deserted their officers, and returned home.

Now that once more Bacon was in possession of all Virginia except the Eastern Shore, his chief concern was the redcoats, whose arrival was reported to be close at hand. Would the people support him in opposing them? So he summoned the Gloucester trained bands and asked them to take an oath to stand by him, fight the English troops, and if they found that they could not defend themselves, their lives, and liberties, to desert the colony.

At this the Gloucester men balked. To fight the King's troops was to defy the might of England. So they asked to be permitted to remain neutral. Deeply disappointed, Bacon reproved them as the worst of sinners who were willing to be saved by others but would not do their part. Then he dismissed them. When he was told that the Reverend James Wadding had tried to dissuade the people from subscribing, he had him arrested. "It is your place to preach in church, not in camps," he said.

Persuasion having failed, Bacon took sterner measures. Setting up a court-martial, he put some of his opponents on trial. But though Berkeley scorned his proposal that they be exchanged for Carver and Bland, none was executed save one deserter. But the trials served their purpose, for when he summoned the militia again they all subscribed to his oath.

Bacon now turned his attention to the Eastern Shore. He realized that so long as Berkeley had there a base of operations, from which he could launch sudden attacks, his position was insecure. So he sent Captain George Farloe, "one of Cromwell's men," with forty soldiers across the bay to surprise and capture Berkeley. But it was not easy to cross so large a body of water in small boats, and Farloe was taken and hanged. Equally futile was a manifesto to the people of the Eastern Shore urging them to rise against the governor.

Bacon gave orders that the estates of the governor and his friends be ransacked for the use of his army, and Green Spring, King's Creek, Warner Hall, and other places, were denuded of their cattle, sheep, hogs, Indian corn, and even blankets and clothing. But when the rough soldiers began to plunder friend and foe alike Bacon called a halt. And instead of hanging every enemy who fell into his hands in retaliation for Berkeley's executions, he released some without bringing them to trial and pardoned others who had been condemned.

To see that his orders were carried out he now planned, probably on the advice of Lawrence and Drummond, to appoint three committees, one "for settling the south side of James River," another to accompany the army "to inquire into the cause of all seizures," and the third to manage the Indian war. To prevent raids by the enemy from the Eastern Shore Bacon ordered the banks of the great rivers "to be guarded all along, to observe their motion, and as they moved to follow them and prevent them from landing or having any provisions sent on board them."

But for the daring young commander the end was at hand. "Before he could arrive at the perfection of his plans providence did that which no other hand durst do." While at his headquarters in the house of Major Thomas Pate, in Gloucester, a few miles east of West Point, he became ill of dysentery. Bacon's enemies accused him of being an atheist, but in his last hours he called in Mr. Wadding to prepare his mind for death. "He died much dissatisfied in mind," we are told, "inquiring ever and anon after the arrival of the frigates and soldiers from England, and asking if the guards were strong about the house." He died October 26, 1676.

Bacon's enemies made much of the fact that he was so infected with lice that his shirts had to be burned, and because of it spoke of his death as infamous. But the lice probably had nothing to do with it, since typhus seems to have been almost unknown in early America. On the other hand, dysentery was fairly common. Bacon's body has never been found. Thomas Mathews tells us that Berkeley wished to hang it on a gibbet, but on exhuming his casket he found in it nothing but stones. It was supposed that the faithful Lawrence, probably in the dark of night, had buried the body in some secret place.

Berkeley gloated over his arch enemy's death. "His usual oath which he swore at least a thousand times a day was 'God damn my blood,'" he wrote, "and God so infected his blood that it bred lice in an incredible number, so that for twenty days he never washed his shirts but burned them. To this God added the bloody flux, and an honest minister wrote this epitaph on him:

'Bacon is dead, I am sorry at my heart That lice and flux should take the hangman's part'."

But while his enemies scoffed, Bacon's followers mourned. One of them expressed their sorrow and despair in excellent verse:

"Death why so cruel! What, no other way To manifest thy spleene, but thus to slay Our hopes of safety, liberty, our all Which, through thy tyranny, with him must fall To its late chaos? Had thy rigid force Been dealt by retail, and not thus in gross, Grief had been silent: Now we must complain Since thou, in him, hast more than thousand slain...."

What, we may ask, should be Bacon's place in history? Is he to be looked upon only as a rash young man, whose ambition and insistence on having his own way brought disaster to the colony and death to many brave men? Or should he be regarded as a martyr to the cause of liberty? That Bacon was precipitate, that his judgement was faulty at times there can be no doubt. But that he fought to put an end to Berkeley's "French despotism", to restore true representative government in the colony, to break the power of the group of parasites who surrounded the governor, to end unjust and excessive taxes, to make local government more democratic, is obvious. He said so repeatedly. When Bacon and his men said they had enough English blood in their veins not to be murdered in their beds by the Indians, they might have added that they had enough English blood not to remain passive while a despotic old governor robbed them of their liberty. When Bacon's enemies tried to cast opprobrium upon him by calling him the Oliver Cromwell of Virginia, they did not realize that future generations would consider this an unintentional tribute. Certainly he must have been a man of great magnetism, power of persuasion, and sincerity, a man who had a cause to plead, who could arouse the devotion of so many thousands. But it was true, as one sorrowing follower wrote, that

"none shall dare his obsequies to sing In deserv'd measures, until time shall bring Truth crown'd with freedom, and from danger free, To sound his praises to posterity."

Bacon's death left the rebels without a leader. Berkeley stated that they would have made Bland their general had he not been his prisoner. What was needed was a man with experience in both military and governmental affairs. Had either Lawrence or Drummond been soldiers one or the other might have been chosen, but apparently neither had ever borne arms. So the army elected Joseph Ingram, who had been second in command under Bacon. Colonel Nicholas Spencer called him "a debauched young man, who this year came to Virginia, and said to be a saddler in England."

Ingram never had the full confidence of his men. He seems to have had some ability as a general, but he was unequal to the task of maintaining order and uniting the distracted colony. Berkeley said that he continued the other officers, but that they "soon disagreed amongst themselves, mistrusting each other."

His task was difficult. If he divided his forces to protect every exposed place along the river banks they might be overwhelmed one by one. It might have been wise for him to carry out Bacon's plan for a flying body of cavalry centered at West Point, within striking distance of the south bank of the Rappahannock, both banks of the York, and the north bank of the James. This would not have prevented night raids by Berkeley's men, but it would have protected the heart of the colony from serious invasion. But Ingram was faced with the problem of feeding his men. The rivers had always been the chief means of communication, but now barges or sloops bringing grain or meat might be intercepted by the _Adam and Eve_, or the _Rebecca_, or the newly arrived warship, the _Concord_. And there was a limit to what could be had by plundering the neighboring plantations.

So Ingram adopted the plan of keeping his main force at the head of the York, and establishing small garrisons at selected points. On the south side of the James he posted a "considerable number" of resolute men in the residence of Major Arthur Allen, known today as Bacon's Castle. At the governor's residence at Green Spring he left about one hundred men under Captain Drew, who guarded the north bank of the James and made away with what was left of Berkeley's cattle, sheep, and grain.

On the south side of the York Major Thomas Whaley, "a stout ignorant fellow", was in command at King's Creek, the estate of Councillor Bacon, while lower down Captain Thomas Hansford, a man of the highest character, was stationed at the site of Yorktown. Across the river another group fortified Mr. William Howard's house, while in Westmoreland still another made their headquarters at the residence of Colonel John Washington.

Hansford, Whaley, Gregory Wakelett, and other officers were men of ability, who could be trusted to remain firm in the cause for which they took up arms. But after Bacon's death the rank and file were filled up partly with slaves and indentured workers, who had little interest in either the Indian war or in curbing the governor's despotism. The garrison at Colonel West's house, near West Point, consisted of about 400 men, of whom eighty were Negroes, and many others were servants. What they wanted was their freedom. But among them there must have been some of Bacon's veterans, for they continued to fight well.

But now the policy of dividing the army into isolated garrisons began to bear bitter fruit. In November, Major Robert Beverley crossed the bay with a strong force in a fleet of transports, entered the York river, and surprised the men at the site of Yorktown. Hansford was captured. A few days later Beverley returned to the York and after a brief encounter captured Major Edmund Cheeseman and Captain Thomas Wilford.

Berkeley now began a series of executions marked by a brutality unsurpassed in American history. One may excuse the tortures inflicted by the Indians because they were savages. There can be no excuse for an Englishman of culture and gentle birth. Extremely avaricious, he had seen the accumulation of a lifetime taken from him; proud of his ability as a ruler, he had seen his government overthrown and had been forced to take refuge in an inaccessible corner of the colony; revering, almost idolizing, the King, he must now explain to him his failures. So his vindictiveness against the men he held responsible knew no bounds.

His first victim was Hansford. When he was condemned by Berkeley's council of war, he pleaded that he might be shot like a soldier not hanged like a dog. "But you are not condemned as a soldier, but as a rebel taken in arms," he was told. As he stood on the scaffold he spoke to the crowd, protesting "that he died a loyal subject and a lover of his country."

When Major Cheeseman was brought in, Berkeley sternly asked him why he had joined the rebels. But as he was about to reply his wife rushed in and told the governor that it was she who had urged him to take up arms, and pleaded that she might be hanged in his place. Though the governor knew that what she said "was near the truth," he spurned her with a vile insult. Yet he was cheated of his revenge, for Cheeseman died in prison, and so escaped the ignominy of the gallows.